Just to summarize the core spottings today, B1051 & S2, B1048, and Dragon C201 & trunk are all in the 39A hangar as of Dec 18.

Attached photo is from Emre Kelly/Florida Today.

How sure are we that this Dragon is getting the C201 number instead of that going to some of the structural or other test articles? For example, what was the number for the article which was used for the Pad Abort?

Just to summarize the core spottings today, B1051 & S2, B1048, and Dragon C201 & trunk are all in the 39A hangar as of Dec 18.

Attached photo is from Emre Kelly/Florida Today.

How sure are we that this Dragon is getting the C201 number instead of that going to some of the structural or other test articles? For example, what was the number for the article which was used for the Pad Abort?

I'm building off of /r/SpaceX's very well-maintained core and capsule lists, which tend to be based off of real internal numbering. Just like Cargo Dragon and Falcon, vehicles only tend to get their own numbers if they are flightworthy, which rules out STAs and other partial fidelity test articles.

Just to summarize the core spottings today, B1051 & S2, B1048, and Dragon C201 & trunk are all in the 39A hangar as of Dec 18.

Attached photo is from Emre Kelly/Florida Today.

How sure are we that this Dragon is getting the C201 number instead of that going to some of the structural or other test articles? For example, what was the number for the article which was used for the Pad Abort?

Just to summarize the core spottings today, B1051 & S2, B1048, and Dragon C201 & trunk are all in the 39A hangar as of Dec 18.

Attached photo is from Emre Kelly/Florida Today.

How sure are we that this Dragon is getting the C201 number instead of that going to some of the structural or other test articles? For example, what was the number for the article which was used for the Pad Abort?

I'm building off of /r/SpaceX's very well-maintained core and capsule lists, which tend to be based off of real internal numbering. Just like Cargo Dragon and Falcon, vehicles only tend to get their own numbers if they are flightworthy, which rules out STAs and other partial fidelity test articles.

Just as a reminder. Falcon Heavy Center Core STA was B1027.

And now that I'm talking about Falcon Heavy. The first FH Block 5 side booster, B1055, was spotted on the road in Louisiana, probably going to Florida to join her sisters B1048 and B1051 at LC-39A.

Just to summarize the core spottings today, B1051 & S2, B1048, and Dragon C201 & trunk are all in the 39A hangar as of Dec 18.

Attached photo is from Emre Kelly/Florida Today.

How sure are we that this Dragon is getting the C201 number instead of that going to some of the structural or other test articles? For example, what was the number for the article which was used for the Pad Abort?

I'm building off of /r/SpaceX's very well-maintained core and capsule lists, which tend to be based off of real internal numbering. Just like Cargo Dragon and Falcon, vehicles only tend to get their own numbers if they are flightworthy, which rules out STAs and other partial fidelity test articles.

Just as a reminder. Falcon Heavy Center Core STA was B1027.

And now that I'm talking about Falcon Heavy. The first FH Block 5 side booster, B1055, was spotted on the road in Louisiana, probably going to Florida to join her sisters B1048 and B1051 at LC-39A.

Until someone can convince me this actually is 1055, I am strongly considering this first FH-side might as well be 1056... Thusfar I have asked for comments openly several times, but no solid info, PM or other signals have reached me to take out this possibility...

Still unseen (No hard evidence as in photo of coreNr or confirmation by people in the know) and very much uncertain of their targeted mission:- 1052- 1053- 1055- 1056 (until other info reaches me: first FH-side)- 1057 (unless serious delays in production, currently at McGregor as second FH-side)- 1058 (should be ready any day now... FH-center??)

Of course, I also do consider the obvious situation that their production pace did delay significantly and they have produces one less core then expected. In that case, 1055 is this first FH-side, 1056 the second, and 1057 is about to leave Hawthorne..

Also to figure out:- Which core to fly DM-2?- Which core to fly Inflight Abort?

Just to summarize the core spottings today, B1051 & S2, B1048, and Dragon C201 & trunk are all in the 39A hangar as of Dec 18.

Attached photo is from Emre Kelly/Florida Today.

How sure are we that this Dragon is getting the C201 number instead of that going to some of the structural or other test articles? For example, what was the number for the article which was used for the Pad Abort?

I'm building off of /r/SpaceX's very well-maintained core and capsule lists, which tend to be based off of real internal numbering. Just like Cargo Dragon and Falcon, vehicles only tend to get their own numbers if they are flightworthy, which rules out STAs and other partial fidelity test articles.

Just as a reminder. Falcon Heavy Center Core STA was B1027.

And now that I'm talking about Falcon Heavy. The first FH Block 5 side booster, B1055, was spotted on the road in Louisiana, probably going to Florida to join her sisters B1048 and B1051 at LC-39A.

Until someone can convince me this actually is 1055, I am strongly considering this first FH-side might as well be 1056... Thusfar I have asked for comments openly several times, but no solid info, PM or other signals have reached me to take out this possibility...

Still unseen (No hard evidence as in photo of coreNr or confirmation by people in the know) and very much uncertain of their targeted mission:- 1052- 1053- 1055- 1056 (until other info reaches me: first FH-side)- 1057 (unless serious delays in production, currently at McGregor as second FH-side)- 1058 (should be ready any day now... FH-center??)

Of course, I also do consider the obvious situation that their production pace did delay significantly and they have produces one less core then expected. In that case, 1055 is this first FH-side, 1056 the second, and 1057 is about to leave Hawthorne..

Also to figure out:- Which core to fly DM-2?- Which core to fly Inflight Abort?

I'm still on the side (pun intended) that this is B1055 because of the testing schedule at McGregor left a gap to retest B1051 at the test stand after B1054 left it, that means delaying the next booster to arrive and that means that when B1055 should have left, it didn't and it left around the time B1056 should have left. I'm still on that thinking but until we see the boosters on the launchpad we won't know. That or someone with good sources throws something here. Until then, it is still somewhat risky to tell if it is one number or the other. I will be happy anyways to see a Falcon Heavy at LC-39A again

Regarding the FH-center.. I most definitely do not rule out a 1052 or 1053 being a FH-center core...

Arguments Pro:- No clear mission in near future for 2 brand new cores..

Arguments Against:- Why not then ship the center core first?- No obvious delay in production pace? 1051-1054 have left Hawthorne in 60 days, thus 20 days between each..- No tweet claiming all hardware for next FH at McGregor.. Would have been a nice media moment..

Edit: Changing the link. The content creator, Abby Garrett, took down the other post and edited her video to add credits to it citing lack of them either on facebook and reddit and because I don't want to get on another dicussion with her here too about what is the difference between taking credit of content and sharing something that someone made, I edit this post in respect to her decision. The screenshot with the arrow will stay the same as I'm on mobile and I don't really want to make this more annoying than it is.

We don't usually see a lot of pictures of boosters on the test stand at McGregor outside of L2 but here we have two from instagram user Ryan Gardner who overflew the test site recently and posted a few pictures of that on his instagram account.

Booster on the test stand should be B1057, the next FH Center Core. One thing that can be clearly seen: it has no SpaceX logo on it

It looks like it has a white interstage, too. Perhaps this could be that mystery "block 5 with white interstage" core that was seen at Hawthorne during the #dearMoon announcement?

Omitting the SpaceX logo makes sense because it'll always be paired with two side cores that have the logo. But the white interstage is a fascinating change because it suggests they're using the old Block 4 TPS (cork painted white for water resistance, IIRC) instead of the new Pyron Zoltec material that debuted on Block 5.

They switched to the Zoltec stuff because it can last many more flights without replacement, but the Block 4 interstages were clearly good for at least two flights without having to replace the TPS (most pre-B5 reflights had toasty-looking interstages indicating the TPS hadn't been replaced), maybe three or four in theory. So, a Block-4-style interstage should be enough for their near-term plans for B1057, but it suggests that they aren't expecting to get a lot of flights out of this core.

That brings to mind a few possibilities:

1. Since FH is expected to fly infrequently (only once or twice a year), this booster may not get many opportunities to fly before Starship replaces it, particularly if they build a second center core to join it in the rotation (a backup would be wise to have, especially since they are planning to stockpile F9/FH cores and shut down production). If Falcon Heavy turns out to be more popular than expected, they can just replace the cork TPS every few flights. It'll be more expensive but probably not too bad.

2. They might be planning to expend this core after 2-3 flights. As far as we know, both Arabsat-6A and STP-2 are going to allow recovery of all three cores, but maybe they know something we don't about the flights they have planned after that? According to the Reddit manifest, the next two FH flights will be AFSPC-22 (Sept. 2020) and ViaSat-3 (H2 2020). AFSPC-22 is listed as GTO with a mass of ≤6350 kg, which should permit 3x recovery even if they go significantly supersynchronous. ViaSat-3 has a similar mass (~6400 kg) but IIRC, they are flying an "almost direct insertion" profile which partially circularizes the orbit*. That could definitely account for an expended center core. If the Block 4 TPS is good for (say) 3 flights, they wouldn't need to replace it if the fourth is going to be expended, since that TPS only exists to preserve the interstage for re-use.

3. Given how challenging it was to rework the Falcon 9 design for center cores so they can take the side loads from boosters, it's possible they just aren't structurally capable of the same number of reuses as a regular Falcon 9. If they know internally that the Block 5 FH center core design (in its current iteration as of 1057's production) is only able to handle a few flights, there's no reason to put the Zoltec TPS on it.

*(I'm not actually positive that it was announced that ViaSat-3 would be "almost direct insertion", but since ViaSat's Atlas V order around the same time is doing that, and Falcon Heavy could offer similar performance, it seems logical.)